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Slip Trip and Fall Claims on Highways caused by Block Drains
Section 41 HA 1980 makes the highway authority responsible for maintaining public highways. Moreover, s392 makes it clear that ‘maintenance’ includes ‘repair’. But, does that duty extend to repairing and maintaining drains beneath the highway surface? Likewise, does it mean that the authority is responsible for cleaning blocked drains, or even dealing with the consequences of inadequate drainage?
A recent consolidated appeal to the CA involved three similar accidents caused by standing water on roads. In each, the drains had been blocked by silt, debris and vegetation. The CA held that the highway authority was liable. The statutory duty to maintain the highway extends beneath the surface to include the drains (and that includes not only the repair of physical defects in the drains, but also the clearance of blockages). In reaching this decision the CA has, in effect, put the law back to what it was generally perceived to be prior to Goodes [2000]. Generally, therefore, a highway accident caused by a lack of repair to the road surface, or an obstruction on the surface caused by a failure to deal with blocked or inadequate drains, will mean that the highway authority is liable. DTER v Mott MacDonald [2006] EWCA Civ 1089.
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